Elton John bids farewell to the British public on Sunday evening on the stage of the legendary Glastonbury Festival, in the south west of England, in which he is participating for the first time. The 76-year-old star, who will end his world farewell tour in Stockholm on July 8, is expected at the end of this 51st edition by tens of thousands of festival-goers on the Pyramid Stage, the most important stage of the event.
Four surprise guests are announced. Speculation is rife, among the names circulating, Harry Styles, Billy Joel, Ed Sheeran or Britney Spears, or even Dua Lipa, who has already made an appearance at Sir Elton’s last concert in Los Angeles last year , alongside Brandi Carlile. “It’s the first time I’ve been asked” to play at Glastonbury, Elton John revealed at the end of May in an interview with the BBC. “It comes at the right time, I believe in fate and it’s the most magnificent way to finish in England.”
Sunday’s show promises to be different from what the public saw during the star’s tour, who deployed extravagant costumes and spectacular visual effects to accompany his titles Tiny Dancer, Rocket Man or Your Song. This concert “is very special,” her husband David Furnish told British channel Sky News this week, with a different “setlist”.
Elton John, moved by a “healthy” nervousness before this show according to David Furnish, had already made it known that he would start with a song that he has not played for 10 years. But if Elton John says goodbye to the scene, he plans to work on a new album in the fall.
The 300 million-selling singer’s farewell tour, dubbed Farewell Yellow Brick Road and originally scheduled to last three years, kicked off in 2018 with more than 300 dates scheduled. But she has been disrupted due to the coronavirus pandemic, hip surgery in 2021 and testing positive for Covid last year.
Before Elton John, Blondie, Yusuf / Cat Stevens, rapper Lil Nas X or Sophie Ellis-Bextor are expected on Sunday on the Pyramid Stage. Sunday evening’s surprises are far from the only ones from this Glastonbury vintage. Friday, the Foo Fighters, for the first time in 25 years at the festival, tumbled for a surprise concert, where a mysterious group, the “Churnups”, was announced. Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl was also invited to join Guns N’Roses on stage – for their first appearance at the festival – for a revisited ‘Paradise City’, along with the Pretenders.
Among the other headliners, Lana Del Rey ran into technical problems which led her to throw an a capella to the audience, while on the main stage came the Arctic Monkeys, Lewis Capaldi – faced with voice problems, Amadou
Glastonbury, an event created in 1970 and which has become legendary twenty years later, which has seen the biggest stars parade, closed its 2022 edition with Paul McCartney, who at 80 had set the festival on fire by taking over classics from Beatles. Soul legend Diana Ross was also in attendance. The festival welcomes more than 200,000 festival-goers who arrive with tents and backpacks. At the beginning of November, tickets sold out in just over an hour for the 2023 edition, despite a price approaching 400 euros.